Shook, Hardy and Bacon (SHB) is a law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri. It also has offices in Geneva, Houston, London, Miami, Orange County, CA, San Francisco, Tampa and Washington D.C. For decades, the firm has represented the nation’s largest tobacco companies.[1]

ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

A partner at the Shook, Hardy & Bacon Washington D.C. offices and a chair of the law firm's Public Policy Group, Victor Schwartz, sits on the ALEC Board of Scholars.[2] He is a long-time co-chair of ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force, as of 2011. [3] Schwartz has been called the "undisputed king of tort reform" (an issue promoted in ALEC model bills that are approved by the Civil Justice Task Force).[4] He also is affiliated with the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) and the Washington Legal Foundation. In 2007, Schwartz was called one of Washington, D.C.'s 50 top lobbyists.[5]

Mark Behrens, also an SHB partner, ias an Advisor to ALEC's Civil Justice Task Force as of 2011.[6] Another partner, Phil Goldberg, is also an Advisor to ALEC's Civil Justice Task Force as of 2011.[7]

Shook, Hardy and Bacon clients and ALEC priorities

According to the American Association for Justice, Shook, Hardy and Bacon has:

“played a pivotal role in the tobacco industry’s campaign to ward off litigation over smoking-related illnesses. In one memorable memo, the law firm’s attorneys advised Phillip Morris to stop testing the effects of nicotine, saying “the performing and publishing of nicotine related research clearly seems ill-advised from a litigation point of view. Not coincidentally, ALEC was heavily involved in the tobacco fight, pushing for restrictions on tobacco litigation and attacking pension funds that dared to divest in tobacco companies, while being compensated to the tune of $200,000 for its work. Similarly, when Shook, Hardy and bacon began representing the pharmaceutical industry, ALEC was suddenly every drug manufacturer’s best friend.”

SHB Lobbying and ALEC

In 2009, Shook, Hardy and Bacon attorneys Mark Behrens and Corey Schaecher traveled to North Dakota to speak with legislators and their staff about ALEC’s asbestos bill, the Innocent Successor Liability Act, without registering as lobbyists. After days of interacting with elected officials, the “North Decoder” blog revealed their lobbying activities on January 23, 2009; within hours, ALEC submitted letters of authorization permitting Behrens and Schaecher to lobby on their behalf, the same day the corporation most likely to benefit from the legislation, Crown, Cork, and Seal, also registered the two as lobbyists. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, this is the only instance in which ALEC has ever registered to lobby in any state.[9]

As a 501(c)(3), ALEC is not permitted to participate in lobbying activities. In its 2009 IRS Form 990, in response to the question “Did the organization participate in lobbying activities” (page 3 question 4), ALEC replied “no.”[10][11]

Clients

Clients of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP have included, but are not limited to: